Daf random ramblingsA home for the things I think are worthy of sharing. Will largely be photography based.

Lytro geekery

Although not a massive geek in things IT and only a bit in Photography the whole Lytro thing does get the inspiration/geek mojo going – exciting science.

Just seen that Lytro are introducing new software to do “stuff” that is fairly cool:

Although not hugely amazing in terms of being able to walk around a scene or anything like that – it is still rather cool.

If you’re not aware of Lytro – it’s the camera where you can change focus after taking the picture! There are plenty of examples on their YouTube page. When it was first announced I thought – oh – it’ll only be a fad. And I still think it’s a little bit of a fad and will unlikely have a place in “serious” photography or at least for a while yet – mostly as you need a special viewer to use the pictures fully – but I now think it’s rather cool and fun. The “cool” bit is the geeky science behind it – the “light field” technology. As I understand it : when recording the light hitting the sensor (as normal digital cameras do) they can also measure in what direction all the light was travelling in – be it photons or pixels. And with this data – then can calculate where the light would be a bit earlier or later and so mathematically alter where the virtual sensor is – thus changing focal point. I assume that this perspective addition is similar but different mathematics.

When announced I was expecting them to be massive and expensive – but they’re actually quite small – compact camera size!

They’reselling for $499 and $399 so ~ £250 and £320.
Am I tempted to get one – well a little, just for the geekery. Will I ? Probably not, although not new at full price…. Seeing as they don’t currently have an outlet/distributor in the UK I guess 2nd hand ones won’t be available in the UK for a while yet.